ABILITY OF ADULTS TO PERFORM MENTAL TASKS IN A PERIOPERATIVE ENVIRONMENT (ANESTHESIA, PATIENT EDUCATION).
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 221
Subjects: Education, Curriculum and Instruction.; Education, Adult and Continuing.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This pretest-posttest exploratory study was conducted to determine the ability of adults to process information following surgery with general anesthesia. The convenience sample (N = 49) consisted of thirteen men and thirty-six women patients from two ambulatory surgery centers who volunteered to participate in the study. The subjects acted as their own controls.

All subjects completed three mental tasks 30 to 60 minutes before surgery, and before the administration of any drugs: (1) Verbal Free Recall, (2) Picture Recognition Recall, and (3) Digit Symbol Substitution Test. They also completed the State-Trait Anxiety Self Questionnaire, and an Anxiety Analogue Scale to identify preoperative anxiety levels. 2 hours following surgery, the subjects again completed the three mental tasks, using different sets of words and pictures.

Student's paired t-Test revealed a consistent decrement in ability to perform mental tasks across time (p = $<$0.001). Repeated measures of analysis of variance for the multiple variables investigated were: State-Anxiety (F = 0.26, p = 0.611), Age (F = 0.40, p = 0.53), Weight (F = 3.38, p = 0.07), Gender (F = 7.02, p = 0.01), Hospital (F = 22.1, p = 0.0001), Type of Surgery (F = 2.3, p = 0.12), Length of Surgery (F = 5.92, p = 0.02), Oxygenation (F = 3.02, p = 0.08), Number of Anesthesia Drugs (F = 0.43, p = 0.52), Length of Anesthesia (F = 4.25, p = 0.05), and Midazolam (F = 4.36, p = 0.04). Those variables with p = 0.05 or less (i.e., gender, hospital, length of surgery and anesthesia, and midazolam), showed no modification of the main pre-post decremental effect of surgery with general anesthesia. It was concluded that the consistent decrement across time was related to the surgical experience with general anesthesia, with no confounding variables.

It was recommended that health care providers do not provide patient education in the 2 hour time frame following ambulatory surgery with general anesthesia because of the decreased ability to perform Free Recall, Recognition Recall, and Psychomotor Performance.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-04, Section: A, page: 1214.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1993.

School code: 0227.